On Wednesday, August 24^th a hurricane warning is issued for the southeastern Florida coast. On Thursday, August 25^th Hurricane Katrina strikes. On Monday, August 29^th President Bush makes an emergency disaster declarations for Louisiana and Mississippi, free federal funds. On Tuesday, August 30^th, five days after Katrina hit, Bush cuts his vacation short to focus on the storm damage (Fox News).

On Monday, October 29^th Hurricane Sandy hits the East Coast. On that Monday morning Obama cancelled his planned Florida rally to fly back the White House to focus on hurricane relief. Eight days before the 2012 presidential election, Obama went from campaigner to hands on commander of the federal response to Hurricane Sandy (New York Times). Continue reading →

Throughout history, people’s attitudes about the environment have changed. European and American views about the environment progressed at different rates. The seventeenth century marked the rise of the pastoral Europe. In America people were hardly comfortable with the idea. They feared the environment for it was a vast, unfamiliar place. Early Americans associated the wilderness with Native Americans, an uncivilized people.

During the eighteenth century, French-American writer, Crevecoeur, spent ten years traveling different colonies in Europe. After settling in North America for over a decade, he moved back to Europe and published a volume of essays called Letter for an American Farmer. This book was a huge success in Europe. Crevecoeur’s book is American literature; however, we must note that it is an America dreamed by the European mind. At the time, Europeans viewed the environment as pastoral, “an idealized non-urban space Continue reading →